Sacred_Path

One of Josh's tweets mentioned ambient sounds. So while you may not see a dozen squirrels at one time, the environments will seem alive.

Depends. Since there will probably be no dialogue skills in P:E, the game could keep track of i.e. your intimidation attempts and allow you to become "better" at it by use/ try to intimidate less impressionable types. But the "karmic" variant, i.e. I've killed 10 friendly NPCs so I can unlock more intimidating dialogue options, I would reject mostly for reasons of internal consistency.

Yes, karma is for the most part not enjoyable. If I kill someone without any witnesses there should be no repercussions, be they positive or negative.

Not to dispel any pre-conceived notions, but it is a common psychological affinity in serial killers to try and be "evil" for evil's sake, because that's how they style themselves. Whether you find this motivation understandable depends more on your own disposition. Not every motivation must be relatable to for everyone, it just matters that there is a motivation and that it's explored at all. BTW if chaotic evil is dumb, what about "I can't for the life of me distinguish between killing babies and giving money to charity it's all so grey o god itz heavan" ?

Finally could watch the video. Some things that stood out to me: - "...doing critical shots to the head..." Sounds like called shots are in, mebbe? :D - Leaving your mark on the world. "Major conflicts" sounds like you can have a hand in political events - Very happy to hear the importance of dungeons for the game mentioned again. Even though Chris sounded admittedly clueless about Endless Paths and how that will fit into the game Things I'm not so happy about: - Animats. Infusing inanimate objects with souls seems like the wrong direction for this game; where the presence of souls in living beings is one thing that stands out. Such "animancy" is better left to steampunk settings - Companions. I'm planning on using the Adventurer's Hall extensively, and it still seems very unclear how these two sorts of characters will go together in the game btw thumbs up for the "passionate reactions" comment xD

Animat "factory"? Here's hoping that's no WIZARDRY level silliness.

oooohh thx. The video doesn't work for me. Mmh, so Defiance Bay is broken down into districts.

balance > freedom of choice I would be perfectly fine with area layouts à la IWD. However, IIRC a stealthy approach should be possible in a lot of situations; that pretty much demands at least two routes most of the time.

Answer #1: no. Answer #2: yes.

Can you give an example of punishing combat? I have watched the whole video and it clearly says if the rules are consistent, then the game is not punishing. The IE games had consistent rules, and they always gave you the tools to beat any challenge. It also says something about telegraphing. There's nothing in the game that gives a hint to a DnD, BG2 newb on how to kill Kangaxx.

As a rule, leveling up should never be boring/ inconsequential. Unsurprisingly, most CRPGs fail in this department. In Fallout 1 and 2, the only levels that I cared about were those that netted you a perk. Same for DnD 3+ games. In AD&D CRPGs, the only levels that were fun to attain were those that unlocked a new spell level; leveling up fighters was completely boring. This is only partly a question of power; arguably, for the level to count it has to impact the character's performance enough to make a difference. But it's more about versatility, about giving the player new options, than making him vastly more powerful. If I get a new ability, active or passive, I can use the character in ways that weren't possible before. If I can raise my stealth skill enough on one level up to turn from passable scout to promising assassin, that's good. If I can raise my bow skill enough for my character to become a passable sniper where before I could only hit things that were in my face, that's good. Bottom line is, I'd rather get 10 levels where each level matters than 30 levels where things only get interesting every third level. I'm ok with diminishing returns though; say, 4-6 levels of bow specialization can turn my blind archer into a master sniper, and on the remaining levels I can only maintain that status.

Btw, how are paladins perceived in the world? I demand they be admired and reviled at a 50/50 rate

great update, though people who hate paladins will certainly continue to do so :D

I couldn't care less. You're going with invented languages, they might as well be counter-intuitive and/or complete gibberish. I don't think I'll conjure up the energy to memorize the rules of even the more "intuitive" languages in P:E; there's simply no compelling reason for that (i.e. the medium doesn't lend itself to that). I'm also 90% sure that in conversation, both online and IRL, people talking about P:E will substitute their own words for in-game terms; i.e. that watchamacallit-banshee you've shown us, I'm confident that people will simply refer to them as banshees. Same for ogres, fire giants, dwarves and dragons ("wurms"). edit: btw, we know there will be a limited amount of VA in P:E. Make sure that a lot of those lines contain conlang words, or else it's going to be really artificial and immersion breaking.

http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwxNwy0js8s&start1=197&video2=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nZsVEA80Pk&start2=5&authorName=Heino_rulz

That's like saying "what if they could make the game more AWESOME at no cost whatsoever? Would that be AWESOME or what?"

I loved Heart of Fury. Icewind Dale was completely linear, and completely bogged down by AD&D rules (simplistic character building) and its conventions (similar party setups), so HoF was a way to extend the game's lifetime on people's harddrives. P:E won't be like that. There will be a lot of different things you can try on any given playthrough, including modes like Trial of Iron.

I'm actively against it. P:E promises to deliver replayability in the form of different party setups and optional difficulty modes, and last but not least, real choices. Therefore, adding an option on top that lets you replay with an experienced character that unlocks new content would be overkill/ a waste of time and ressources. Now an export feature as seen in Baldur's Gate, I'm not against that, as long as no additional dev time is spent on this (i.e. for balancing).

I've seen this topic brought up in several threads, but they usually focused on one particular game; so I thought a more comprehensive thread is in order. Wether you think P:E should take cues from a certain game or avoid following its example. I'll start with two older games I've been replaying, mostly because these really bothered me lately. Might and Magic VII In this game you're provided with a default party of Knight/ Thief/ Cleric/ Sorceror. I suspect that during the conceiving phase of this game, these four classes were what the other (another 5) classes were based on as far as skills and equipment go. While this should supposedly make for some variety in party building, in most cases, you're shooting yourself in the foot if you stray from the default party. It's simply the most effective combination for dealing with the different challenges you'll face. Something similar has been hinted at in P:E, with the "core four" being the gold standard the other classes are measured against. Granted, P:E will in all likelihood allow for a much greater variety of characters even within one class, but I still think we could fall into this trap; especially if, for the benefit of more casual players, it's ensured that "you can't go wrong with fighter/ rogue/ priest/ wizard". Wizardry 8 Due to either an oversight or bad reasoning, alchemy allows you to gain unlimited gold right at the start of the game. This is especially good/ bad because you can actually put that money to good use in W8, buying not only powerful weapons and armor right away but also powerful potions, bombs, scrolls, and unlimited means of resurrection. Now, if you're playing on Expert Ironman, the game can still be challenging; but this doesn't gloss over the fact that, without having to manage your ressources, something vitally interesting about squad-level tactics gets lost. It's especially comical because in W8, as in pretty much every CRPG and probably in P:E also, gold is a trail of bread crumbs you're conditioned to follow. With gold being meaningless, a lot of incentives given by the game make no sense anymore (of course it doesn't help that XP from grinding is also far more plentiful than XP from quests - this lesson has already been learned). Therefore, my advice is to limit the players ressources wherever possible, rather than upping the odds against them - I'd rather have to think wisely about what enemy to use my arrow of carnage on, rather than having 40 of them but being swarmed by an entire Orcish war band.

which severely limits possible party combinations, as you'll always end up with a nearly identical mix of early and late shiners. Though, if that floats your boat, you're looking at a rather big back catalog (even in a genre as little prolific as the PC RPG), because most older party-based games suffered from this.

I'm not even sure there are goblins in P:E. And if they are they're probably called Greenthingamabobs.

I would guess (with nothing to go on) that the talents will be akin to Fallout's perks in this regard - that is, for certain talents, arrangements will have to be made long in advance. I also wouldn't see anything wrong with that, especially if simply piling on more easily gained talents results in an equally powerful, albeit mechanically very different character. In Lionheart (which used SPECIAL) all perks were laid out in the manual - I don't remember if this was the case in Fallout 1&2 - so that even on your first playthrough, you could make an informed decision about what character you wanted to build.

don't you say I was actually thinking about this right now and I'd say the first Icewind Dale (with HoW installed). Single class thieves and mages were underpowered, but apart from that, all classes were useful. Of course the game lacked balance in the same regard that all AD&D games heavily favored an equal share of tanks, healers and controllers in a party, but that's nitpicking. That's one thing I like about heavily linear games, the potential to be well-balanced. If P:E was simply an updated version of IWD with a different ruleset, I'd be happy (maybe next time?).

I hope they'll make some tools available for the beta(s) too. A powerful character editor goes a long way in facilitating testing.

Post-production is where my hopes lie. Lack of polish is the bane of every complex RPG, be it bugs, glitches, inconsistencies or balance issues. There isn't a single complex RPG I can think of that I've played in the last 15 years that isn't brought down by some of these. I hope that with advance funding, P:E will only be pushed out the door when it shines like a diamond. I will also repeat myself about this from time to time.